Rebecca Sheir is the host and producer of Circle Round, a kids’ storytelling podcast from WBUR. The show tells folktales from around the world, adapted for modern families. She shares with Offspring how parents can use storytelling in their everyday lives with their kids.

Stories have shapes. Any story you tell works best if you recognize its shape, then strengthen that shape. This applies to a story of any length, whether you’re putting in your 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month 2017, or honing your favorite party anecdote, or even marketing something, including yourself.…

You know that creepy urban legend you heard about that thing in your town? Yeah, someone is probably telling that very same story in another part of the country right now. Here’s why everybody seems to know the same spooky stories, no matter where they are.

It’s that special time of year again when everyone is looking for a good scary story. And though podcasts more often conjure up the images of gentle interviews with creative types and soothing NPR voices, more shows are moving into the territory of old-school radio plays, producing unsettling (and addictive) stories…

This week, Alan Alda and The Moth’s Catherine Burns join us to talk about storytelling. What makes a good story? What makes a good storyteller? How can we use storytelling to communicate better, to sell people on our ideas, to make people like us?

It’s always fun to tell travel stories and let your friends know about all the cool, new places you discovered. However, research shows that listeners are more interested when the story is about something they’ve experienced themselves.

It’s impossible to quantify what, exactly, makes a good story. However, underneath most popular stories, there are only a handful of familiar story arcs that we tell over and over again. In this video, author Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates these arcs by drawing them.

You probably know this moment well: everyone has said what they wanted to say and an awkward silence fills the room. Well don't be afraid and save the day with a few of your best stories worth telling.

When you hear about role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, you probably picture a dimly-lit basement filled with people in silly robes rolling dice, but there's much more to it than that. Not only are role-playing games incredibly fun, but they can actually teach you skills you'll use in the real world.

As a storyteller of any kind, the way you weave your narrative decides whether people keep reading, watching, or listening. The classic role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons can teach you how to construct strong narrative and how to collaborate with others in a way that's a whole lot of fun.

Storytelling is perhaps the best way to present information so it's memorable and relatable, and it can make you stand out especially in job interviews. Career expert Liz Ryan of Human Workspace drew up this poster to help you arm yourself with stories before your next interview.

Storytelling not only activates our brains, it's an essential skill for presentations, writing, and conversations—including job interviews. 99U points out the five steps or "beats" to make you a better, more interesting storyteller.

Telling a story is the most powerful way to activate our brains. If you want to become a better storyteller, UCLA Film School Howard Suber says you should keep in mind the word "but" and the theme that "things are not what they seem."

A good story can make or break a presentation, article, or conversation. But why is that? When Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich started to market his product through stories instead of benefits and bullet points, sign-ups went through the roof. Here he shares the science of why storytelling is so uniquely powerful.

Psychologists and psychotherapists have long relied on the power of narrative storytelling to help their patients make sense of their world. In fact, it's been said that we are our narratives. For evidence that this may be true, pay attention to how people shape their stories about themselves. As it turns out, there…